(1) Hacked Emails expose George Soros as Ukraine Puppet-Master (2) Soros calls for "Big Bang" Privatization of Ukraine energy sector, & Deregulation (price rises) (3) Soros wants Merkel & Hollande to finance the weapons for a third invasion of Donbass by Ukraine (4) Soros wants to buy up the Ukrainian state gas and energy monopoly, Naftogaz - F. William Engdahl (5) A Winning Strategy For Ukraine, by George Soros at Project Syndicate (6) Ukraine now much poorer than before Yanukovych ouster (1) Hacked Emails expose George Soros as Ukraine Puppet-Master Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 18:47:04 +0900 Subject: Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master | Zero Hedge From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-01/hacked-emails-expose-george-soros-ukraine-puppet-master Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master Zero Hedge Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine. In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine," expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force," and finally explained Poroshenko's "first priority must be to regain control of financial markets," which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding "I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement." The hacking group CyberBerkut claims it has penetrated Ukraine’s presidential administration website and obtained correspondence between Soros and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko. It has subsequently posted all the intercepted pdfs on line at the following location. More details as RT earlier reported: The hacktivists have published three files online, which include a draft of “A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine” by Soros (dated March 12, 2015); an undated paper on military assistance to Kiev; and the billionaire’s letter to Poroshenko and Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, dated December 23, 2014. According to the leaked documents, Soros supports Barack Obama’s stance on Ukraine, but believes that the US should do even more. He is confident that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force.” “In poker terms, the US will ‘meet, but not raise,” the 84-year-old businessman explained, supposedly signing one of the letters as “a self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine.” The Western backers want Kiev to“restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement,” Soros wrote. Among other things, the leaked documents claim that the Ukrainian authorities were also asked to “restore some semblance of currency stability and functioning banking system” and “maintain unity among the various branches of government” in order to receive assistance from foreign allies. Soros believes that it’s up to the EU to support Kiev with financial aid, stressing that “Europe must reach a new framework agreement that will allow the European Commission to allocate up to $1 billion annually to Ukraine.” As for the current state of economy, the billionaire wrote that former Chilean finance minister, Andres Velasco, after visiting Ukraine on his request, returned with “a dire view of financial situation." “The new Ukraine is literally on the verge of collapse” due to the national bank’s lack of hard currency reserves, Soros warned Poroshenko. The correspondence shows that the billionaire has been in constant touch with the authorities in Kiev and consulting them. Digging into the details of the documents, we find one intriguing snippet: As you know, I asked Andrés Velasco, a prominent economist who was Chile’s very successful minister of finance from 2006-2010 to visit Kyiv where he met the Prime Minister; the President was in Warsaw at the time. Velasco came back with a dire view of the financial situation. The National Bank of Ukraine has practically no hard currency reserves. That means that the hryvnia has no anchor. If a panic occurred and the currency collapsed as it did in Russia, the National Bank could not stabilize the exchange rate even if only temporarily as Russia did by injecting $90 billion. Your first priority must be to regain control over the financial markets—bank deposits and exchange rates. Unless you do, you will have no way to embark on deeper reforms. I believe the situation could be stabilized by getting the European Council to make a commitment in principle that they will pull together the new $15 billion package that the IMF requires in order to release the next tranche of its original package at the end of January 2015. Based on that commitment the Federal Reserve could be asked to extend a $15 billion three months swap arrangement with the National Bank of Ukraine. That would reassure the markets and avoid a panic. ... I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement. One wonders what other matters of national importance involve George Soros getting on the line with the US Treasury Secretary to arrange virtually unlimited funds courtesy of the US Federal Reserve just to promote one person's ulterior agenda? And just like that, conspiracy Theory becomes Conspiracy Fact once again. The full documents are below: Ironically, the first document laying out the "short and medium-term comprehensive strategy for new Ukraine" and signed by George Soros, "a self-appointed advocate of the New Ukraine", was ironically created byTamiko Bolton, the 40 year old who became Soros' third wife several years ago. Soros Ukraine Strategy The next letter, one directly sent by Soros to Ukraine's president Poroshenko and prime minister Yatseniuk, comes courtesy of a pdf created by Douglas York, Soros' personal assistant. Priority To Fix Financial Markets Finally, a letter (authored by Yasin Yaqubie of the International Crisis Group based on its pdf metadata properties), which lobbies the US "to do more." Ukraine Letter to Potus - Lethal Aid To sum up: Soros is basically lobbying on behalf of Ukraine, pushing for cash and guns, to oppose Putin in every way possible. If genuine, and based on their meta data, they appear to be just that, these lettes show how Soros is trying to weasel around the Minsk agreements (for instance, how to train Ukrainian soldiers without having a visible NATO presence in Ukraine). The documents link up Nuland with Soros, and clears up who is truly pulling the strings of the US State Department. Finally, while the documents don't mention what Soros has in store for Ukraine, one can use their imagination. (2) Soros calls for "Big Bang" Privatization of Ukraine energy sector, & Deregulation (price rises) http://engineeringevil.com/2015/06/02/george-soros-hacked-e-mails-in-regards-to-the-ukraine/ George Soros Hacked E-mails in Regards to the Ukraine ? By Ralph Turchiano on June 2, 2015 Editors Note: ( Ralph Turchiano ) These are Alleged, and need confirmation to their validity Letter 1 : Short letter in regards to Financial Assistance PDF 1 267364476-Priority-To-Fix-Financial-Markets Letter 2: His Strategy for the Ukraine PDF 2 267364428-Soros-Ukraine-Strategy Letter 1 GEORGE SOROS December 23, 2014 His Excellency Petro Poroshenko President of Ukraine Kyiv UKRAINE Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, My Dear Friends, I want to appeal to you to unite behind the reformers in your government and give your wholehearted support to a radical, “big bang” type of approach. That is to say, administrative controls would be removed and the economy would move to market prices rapidly rather than gradually. As you know, I have left no stone unturned trying to drum up support for a larger financial package at the European Summit dinner on December 18. You could see from the communique that I did not have much success, although the comments by Presidents Tusk and Juncker were helpful. There was a widespread feeling that the Ukrainian government has not got its act together and is not really committed to radical reforms. Yesterday morning I spoke to Christine Lagarde who has been most supportive of my arguments and she has expressed similar views. This puts the “new” Ukraine, that is adamantly opposed to the “old” Ukraine with its endemic corruption and ineffective government, into jeopardy. The public is willing to put up with a certain amount of sacrifices for the sake of a new Ukraine, but Ukraine needs a larger financial package than the $15 billion currently contemplated to keep the drop in living standards to a tolerable level. In order to justify a larger package the government needs to present a convincing budget with significant savings. The civil service headcount needs to be cut by much more than 10% and Naftogaz needs to be reorganized with a big bang replacing the hidden subsidies provided by Naftogaz with direct subsidies for the needy. As Yuriy Vitrenko explained to me this could be made to work by assuring people that their request for subsidy will be granted for the first year whether they are entitled to it or not (using social pressure to discourage unjustified Page 2 requests) and not requiring them to pay more than the year before. That would give the authorities a year to organize an orderly transition from hidden to explicit subsidies. That is why I urge you to endorse the big bang approach. You are fortunate to have appointed three “new Ukrainian” ministers and several natives who are committed to this approach. They could reorganize their own ministries, cutting the headcount to a fraction of its current size but raising the salaries of the remaining staff. This could provide an example for the other ministers to follow. The ministers who undertook radical reforms could be held responsible if they failed, but they must be given a chance to succeed by allowing them to choose their own deputies. When I asked President Juncker’s diplomatic advisor what he had in mind when he spoke about the lack of progress, surprisingly he emphasized constitutional reforms. Indeed, Ukraine is at a unique moment when the public is passionately interested in constitutional issues and this moment should not be missed. Civil society needs to be actively engaged in the discussions. This raises the role of the National Reform Council which I hope you will clarify between the two of you. As you know, I asked Andrés Velasco, a prominent economist who was Chile’s very successful minister of finance from 2006-2010 to visit Kyiv where he met the Prime Minister; the President was in Warsaw at the time. Velasco came back with a dire view of the financial situation. The National Bank of Ukraine has practically no hard currency reserves. That means that the hryvnia has no anchor. If a panic occurred and the currency collapsed as it did in Russia, the National Bank could not stabilize the exchange rate even if only temporarily as Russia did by injecting $90 billion. Your first priority must be to regain control over the financial markets—bank deposits and exchange rates. Unless you do, you will have no way to embark on deeper reforms. I believe the situation could be stabilized by getting the European Council to make a commitment in principle that they will pull together the new $15 billion package that the IMF requires in order to release the next tranche of its original package at the end of January 2015. Based on that commitment the Federal Reserve could be asked to extend a $15 billion three months swap arrangement with the National Bank of Ukraine. That would reassure the markets and avoid a panic. I believe the communique from Brussels and the comments by Presidents Tusk and Juncker are having a calming effect on the market. It is for you to decide whether you consider the danger of a financial panic real enough to take preventive measures. If you do, you would have to call Chancellor Merkel to ask for a commitment in principle on a Page 3 $15 billion package. I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement. I have to leave for Asia on December 27th and I would like to discuss this issue with you by phone or preferably by Skype before I leave. I shall have to reduce the intensity of my involvement in Ukraine for the next three weeks. I plan to visit Kyiv after Davos. My deputy Chris Canavan is ready to visit earlier if necessary. With continued best wishes, {signed} George Soros Letter 2: Draft Non-Paper/ v14 A short and medium-term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine Short-term: The next three to five months Medium-term: The next three to five years I. The Starting Point 1. Putin prefers a financial collapse and political infighting that would destabilize all of Ukraine to a military victory that would give him control over part of Ukraine. This is corroborated by the fact that he twice converted a military victory to a cease-fire that recognized the facts on the ground without depriving him of his first mover advantage. 2. Minsk 2 brings Putin close to attaining his preferred outcome. He is now reverting to military de-escalation in the belief that he has accomplished his mission and in the hope that he can avoid a renewal of the economic sanctions when they expire in July. 3. The financial and political deterioration of Ukraine makes Putin the winner. This is doomed to continue or accelerate unless Ukraine and its allies can agree on a comprehensive strategy that will deprive Putin of his first-mover advantage. Just as Putin does not obtain Merkel’s and Hollande’s signature before executing his strategy, the same applies in reverse to the strategy below. II. The Strategy Ukrainian and allied leaders should agree on the following principles: 1. In the absence of adequate support from its allies, the new Ukraine is no match for Putin’s Russia. 2. It is in the collective self-interest of Ukraine’s allies to enable the new Ukraine not only to survive but to prosper; and as long as they can agree on a way of providing adequate support without getting involved in a direct military conflict, they should be able to prevail against Putin’s Russia. 3. While it would be more desirable to have Russia as a partner than an enemy, that is impossible as long as Putin persists in his current policies. 4. It will be much more costly, particularly for Europe, to defend itself against the threat that a victorious Putin regime will pose when the new Ukraine collapses, than to provide adequate support to the new Ukraine while it is still alive. 5. Keeping the new Ukraine alive and helping it to succeed should take precedence over sanctions against Russia. Sanctions must be maintained and if necessary strengthened as long as Putin persists in overt military attacks on Ukrainian soil; but they harm not only the Russian but also the European and global economy. They also reinforce Putin’s narrative that blames Russia’s problems entirely on the implacable hostility of the ‘West’. This helps him to retain the support of the Russian people and to consolidate his power. By contrast, a functioning democracy in Ukraine that manages to reform its economy even in the midst of Russian aggression would turn Putin’s narrative into a lie that no amount of propaganda could cover up. More and more Russians would want to follow Ukraine’s example. 6. Therefore Ukraine’s allies should treat Ukraine as a defense priority, not as another Greece. They should declare that they will do whatever it takes to help the new Ukraine succeed short of getting involved in direct military confrontation with Russia or violating the Minsk agreement. III. The short-term: the next three months A. What Ukraine must deliver 1. Restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement. 2. Restore some semblance of currency stability and a functioning banking system. 3. Maintain unity among the various branches of government. 4. Preserve the institutional integrity and independence of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) 5. Provide tangible evidence that the government knows where the leaks in the budget are and knows how to stop them. 6. Prepare and initiate a convincing economic and political reform program that both donors and investors would find attractive. 7. Present an impressive case at a donors’ and investors’ conference in three months time with two months leeway. B. What the allies must deliver 1. Help restore the fighting capacity of the Ukrainian army without violating the Minsk Agreement. The allies must imitate Putin in the practice of deniability to deprive him of his first-mover advantage. 2. Europe must reach a new framework agreement that will allow the European Commission to allocate up to ?1 billion annually to Ukraine charging only 9% to the budget and to use it also for other than balance of payments support. This requires a political decision by Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, as signatories of the Minsk Agreement, and the expenditure of considerable political capital to overcome legal hurdles and reach unanimity. 3. Be ready to commit some or all of these funds if the Ukrainian reform program justifies it. To turn the tables on Putin, Ukraine needs to be converted from a source of political risk to an attractive investment destination. That will require larger EFF’s and reinsurance for political risk insurance at attractive rates. IV. The State of Play A. Ukraine 1. General Wesley Clark, Polish General Skrzypczak and a few specialists under the auspices of the Atlantic Council will advise President Poroshenko how to restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement. 2. Through no fault of its own, the IMF’s Extended Funds Facility (EFF) program came too late. The NBU started running short of reserves in the fall of 2014 and the currency was supported mainly by hope. But the deteriorating military situation undermined confidence and the currency broke free of its anchor at the end of February and dropped from 16 to 33 in a few days. The climax was reached on February 25th when the NBU introduced import controls and raised interest rates to 30%. Since then, the President’s jawboning has brought the exchange rate back close to the 21.7 level on which the 2015 budget is based. But the improvement is extremely precarious. The temporary collapse has shaken public confidence and endangered the balance sheets of banks and companies with hard currency debts. It has also undermined the calculations on which the IMF programs are based. There is no way Ukraine can save $15.4 billion from restructuring its debt. The Extended Fund Facility is insufficient even before it is implemented. EU member states have shown no willingness to consider any additional bilateral help on account of their own fiscal restraints (which is why Ukraine’s leaders are so hesitant in proposing the strategy outlined above). The new Ukraine is literally on the verge of collapse. 3. After nearly a year of preparations, all the ingredients of a radical reform program are available; they only need to be put together. The framework for bringing the various branches of government together has also emerged. The National Reform Council (NRC) brings together the presidential administration, the cabinet of ministers, the Rada and its committees and civil society. It was established by presidential decree which has naturally caused some friction between the President and the Prime Minister. Yatsenyuk considered the NRC an unconstitutional encroachment by Poroshenko into economic policy. The performance of the Governor of the NBU has been another source of friction. Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko are leaders of different political parties and local elections in the fall are looming. 4. Nevertheless, the NRC is up and running. It functions quite well in setting the legislative priorities and the President and the Prime Minister have been working together pushing bills through the Rada. An unresolved conflict remained concerning implementation and the functioning of the Project Management Office (PMO) but it was resolved on March 5th. In short, the conflict between Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk has been greatly exaggerated both in Ukraine and abroad. 5. The International Renaissance Foundation which is the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundations was the sole financial supporter of the NRC until now and it will be one of the main supporters of the PMO, which is in charge of financing the NRC and implementing various reform projects, from now on. The structure of the PMO is worth sketching out because it is quite new and not yet legally established, although it has had a small staff at work for the last couple of months. It will operate under the control of a three-member committee consisting of Dmytro Shymkiv on behalf of the president, Aivaras Abromavi?ius, Minister of the Economy, on behalf of the cabinet and Hanna Hopko or someone else, on behalf of the Rada. Minister Abromavi?ius will also be in charge of donor coordination and in organizing a donors’ and investors’ conference in three month’s time. So everything seems to fit together very well. There is a stark contrast between the deteriorating external reality and the continuing progress in internal reforms. 6. The centerpiece of economic reforms will be the reorganization of Naftogaz and the introduction of market pricing for all forms of energy, replacing hidden subsidies with explicit subsidies for needy households. The PMO has engaged McKinsey Consulting to assist Naftogaz and the other interested parties in preparing the plan for presentation at the donors’ conference. 7. Institutional reforms should include three major elements: First, set up the anti-corruption agencies, such as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, and the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, and finalize anti-corruption legislation according to the international standards. Second, implement the first stage of the judiciary reform, including setting up of the new High Council of Justice, and launching the re-appointment procedures for judges. Third, launch the Constitutional reform program with decentralization as the first goal. The process has been slowed down by the insistence of the newly elected Rada on proper procedures and total transparency. 8. The distinguishing feature of the new Ukraine is that, while the oligarchs are influential in the political parties, ministers and other officials are selected not on the basis of party affiliation but personal integrity and professional qualifications. This feature needs to be preserved. Moreover, the budget is still a leaky container. The sources of the large leaks are well known- Naftogaz and the banking system; the government needs to stop these leaks in order to induce the donors to pour money into the container. It is essential for the government to produce a visible demonstration during the next three months in order to change the widely prevailing image of Ukraine as an utterly corrupt country. B. The European Union 1. Since member states don’t have adequate financial resources, a way has to be found to use the AAA credit of the European Union itself. The search has zeroed in on a well-established financial instrument, the Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) facility. The MFA has an unusual feature: only 9% of the allotted funds are charged to the budget of the European Union; the EU borrows the rest from the market, using its AAA credit. This makes it very popular. The European Commission used it to contribute to the first IMF rescue package and also to the EFF. They had great difficulty in scraping together 2.5 billion euros for the EFF because the 2015 budget was already over-committed. 2. The European Commission will undertake a mid-term review of the EU budget in 2016 and intends to allocate 1% of the budget or one billion euro to Ukraine. 3. If the entire amount were channeled through the MFA it would make 11 billion euros available to Ukraine annually starting 2017. Unfortunately, that is not possible because the framework agreement that determines the size of the MFA guarantee fund has expired at the end of 2009. Since then the Parliament and the Council have taken legislative decisions on individual MFA operations under the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision), resulting in a lengthy decisionmaking process. The Commission tried to introduce a new framework regulation in 2011 to streamline decision-making, but it was withdrawn in 2013 because the co-legislators could not agree. Since then, the EU operates in a legal limbo when extending assistance to non-EU Member States. 4. In order to increase the guarantee fund, the European Commission needs to introduce a new MFA framework regulation and get it approved by the Council. Unfortunately that requires unanimous consent. The political leadership needs to reach a political decision and use up considerable political capital to make it unanimous. Once that is done the allocation of ?1 billion to Ukraine from the European budget could be introduced in the form of a supplemental budget that requires only a qualified majority and could become effective in 2016. 5. A ?1 billion annual allocation to Ukraine with only 9% charged to the budget would make ?11 billion available annually. This would be more than sufficient to make comprehensive political risk insurance available in addition to providing budgetary and other support to Ukraine. The insurance would be sold through the established national and international institutions like Euler Hermes in Germany, OPIC in the US and MIGA at the World Bank, but these institutions would be reimbursed by the EU through the MFA to make the insurance commercially attractive. Using MFA for purposes other than balance of payments support and using it to make political risk insurance commercially attractive runs into a number of legal hurdles that need to be overcome in the next three to five months. 6. The larger the volume provided, the less likely that the guarantee fund would be invoked. But the European Union cannot be expected to take on the additional risk unless Ukraine demonstrates its determination and ability to fulfill all the requirements listed above. Ukrainian reformers strongly support conditionality and accountability. 7. Once the insurance is available, I am prepared to invest up to $1 billion in Ukrainian businesses. This is likely to attract the interest of the investment community. As stated above, Ukraine must become an attractive investment destination. The investments will be for-profit but I will pledge to contribute the profits to my foundations. This should allay suspicions that I am advocating policies in search of personal gain. 8. If possible, both the insurance scheme and my investment fund should be announced at the donors’ conference. That would come as a surprise to the business community and transform Ukraine’s economic outlook for the better. V. A Winning Scenario 1. Putin is likely to be impressed by a ‘whatever it takes’ declaration. His main constraint has been that he could not afford to let down the Russian nationalists because they would return to Russia and accuse him of betraying them; but he discharged that obligation with the second Minsk agreement. Therefore, he is likely to abstain from military escalation until July in the hope that the economic sanctions will be allowed to expire. 2. By July, Ukraine will have presented a convincing reform program and the allies rewarded it by planning additional budgetary support and announcing their intention to introduce a political risk insurance scheme. Constitutional reform will likely be stalled because the separatists will insist on a federal constitution and Kyiv will resist it. 3. The allies will then make the expiration of sanctions conditional on Russia agreeing to Ukraine depositing the $3 billion in a facility that would be used to underwrite the political risk insurance scheme. If there is a covered event during those five years, then the injured party is indemnified by the facility. If there is no covered event, then the Russians get their money back, but only after five years. 4. At the same time, the allies will offer face-saving measures short of accepting the illegal annexation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. 5. Since military re-escalation is liable to run into military resistance from Ukraine and strong domestic opposition in Russia, Putin may well accept the facesaving measures. The tables will be turned and Ukraine would become an attractive investment destination. George Soros A self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine March 12, 2015 (3) Soros wants Merkel & Hollande to finance the weapons for a third invasion of Donbass by Ukraine Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 18:19:21 +0900 Subject: Confidential Document: Soros's Plan for Ukraine by Eric Zuesse From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> ..."Soros wants Ukrainians to get rid of Vladimir Putin.." http://rinf.com/alt-news/featured/confidential-document-soross-plan-for-ukraine/ A hacked document from the Ukrainian Government, in which George Soros, on 12 March 2015 (a month after the Hollande-Merkel Minsk II ceasefire agreement had been signed), advised Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko how to re-arm and resume the war against the Donbass region in Ukraine’s far east. (According to a Russian television report dated 14 April 2011, Soros had been financing the political careers of the people who have now become the leading politicians in Ukraine, since at least 2008.) The newly revealed document (hacked by “Cyber Berkut,” a reliable source) opened by acknowledging that Ukraine’s military had been twice defeated in their attempt to restore that region to Ukraine’s control (here was the first defeat; and here was the second), and that, both times when a ceasefire was established, it “recognized the facts on the ground” instead of requiring Donbass forces to move back to the earlier war-front demarcation lines. (And here was the final result.) In other words: Soros acknowledged that both of Ukraine’s previous two invasions of Donbass had been defeated, and he laid out here his plan for a third invasion, yet to come, after the West will have restored Ukraine’s military and taken stronger control over it. His “Draft Non-Paper/v14,” which presumably was the 14th in a series of ongoing instructions to the Ukrainian Government — the Government that had been established by the U.S. coup in Kiev in February 2014 (and which he was proud to have helped bring about) — was titled, “A short and medium-term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine.” It defined “Short-term” as “The next three to five months,” and “Medium-term” as “The next three to five years.” (There was no “Long-term” in it.) The document opened by acknowledging that there had been “twice converted a military victory to a cease-fire that recognized the facts on the ground,” and he wrote under the core assumption that the fighters who were defending Donbass were not locals who live there and who were protecting their families against attacks from the Ukrainian military, but instead Russian soldiers. He assumed that the people who are living there, and who are shooting down some of Ukraine’s bombers, which were dropping bombs on the cities, and which Ukrainian Government forces in Donbass were firing rockets at schools and hospitals and apartment buildings and indiscriminately at residential neighborhoods, were not people who had lived there all their lives, but instead invading Russian soldiers; and Soros asserted that it was Russia’s Vladimir Putin himself who “twice converted a military victory to a cease-fire that recognized the facts on the ground without depriving him of his first mover advantage.” By “first mover advantage,” Soros was referring to Putin as being the invader — the Ukrainian Governmen forces were merely responding to these invaders from Russia, he assumed; Soros started with the assumption that the people who actually live in that region, of what had formerly been part of Ukraine, don’t count, and are not a factor in the war — that they were not fighting, if they even really existed. (They did and do exist. Here they are, telling their own stories, and showing their corpses, maimed, and destroyed homes, and explaining why they have taken up arms against the invading Ukrainian armed forces.) Soros says: “It is in the collective self-interest of Ukraine’s allies to enable the new Ukraine not only to survive but to prosper; and as long as they can agree on a way of providing adequate support without getting involved in a direct military conflict, they should be able to prevail against Putin’s Russia.” In other words, boiled down, he was saying: “Let’s you and him fight.” “Ukraine’s allies” won’t be the ones spilling blood there, he’s telling Ukraine’s President, whose forces “should be able to prevail against Putin’s Russia.” The U.S. will just send weapons and trainers, to assist in the bloodshed, and the victory “against Putin’s Russia” (not against the residents in Donbass, who don’t even exist, for him). Before the U.S. coup in Ukraine, the entire nation was at peace, and Crimea was peacefully part of Ukraine, and so was Donbass. (It was sort of like Iraq under Saddam Hussein had been, until George W. Bush invaded that, except Ukraine was a democracy before obama overthrew its Government and installed a racist fascist anti-Russian regime there.) But now that the U.S. had overthrown that democratic Ukrainian Government and installed its own regime (basically, selecting the new leader on 4 February 2014, 18 days before the coup), George Soros is telling them to go to war yet a third time against Russia (not that Ukraine ever actually was at war with Russia), using as the staging-area for America’s proxy-war against Russia, Donbass, on Russia’s very border, and perhaps also even Crimea (which is actually unlikely to be invaded by Ukraine, because Crimea immediately was taken over by Russian troops, in order to prevent the new U.S. regime in Kiev from grabbing Russia’s main naval base, which since 1783 has been located in Crimea. Immediately after the coup, Putin recognized that Russia’s naval base was endangered; and for Ukraine to invade Crimea would thus be for Ukraine to be really and directly at war against Russia itself, which is what Soros seems to want.) Soros’s document then went into a section titled “II. The Strategy.” This section made clear that the purpose of his war is regime-change in Russia. He said: “While it would be more desirable to have Russia as a partner than an enemy, that is impossible as long as Putin persists in his current policies.” In other words: Russia should be a “partner” but this means replacing Vladimir Putin with a leader whom Washington approves of, just as had earlier happened with Ukraine’s former President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Obama overthrew. (Yanukovych was just a stepping-stone in this plan to topple Putin.) Whereas America invaded Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein, Soros wants Ukrainians to get rid of Vladimir Putin, and this requires heavily arming Ukraine. Soros was giving instructions to this regime that he had proudly helped bring into power. But he pretended that doing this would economically benefit Ukraine. Soros declared his goal to be: “a functioning democracy in Ukraine that manages to reform its economy even in the midst of Russian aggression,” and that the reason for this goal is that it’s the way to “turn Putin’s narrative into a lie that no amount of propaganda could cover up. More and more Russians would want to follow Ukraine’s example.” In other words: Soros is saying that so many Russians will envy the new Ukraine that they’ll rise up and overthrow Putin. (But, actually, at the very time that Soros was writing this, Ukraine’s economy was already in free-fall with no light visible at the end of any realistic tunnel but only total economic collapse. Soros ignored that reality, which he almost certainly was aware of.) Under the category “What Ukraine must deliver” within “the next three months” (which means by now, as this is written) are included: “1. Restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.” … “7. Present an impressive case at a donors’ and investors’ conference in three months time with two months leeway.” (As if that would even be realistic in light of Ukraine’s surviving now only by going ever-more-rapidly ever-deeper into debt to the IMF, EU and U.S., and with bankruptcy plans for Ukraine already being prepared.) Under the category “What the allies must deliver” (in that same timeframe) are: “1. Help restore the fighting capacity of the Ukrainian army without violating the Minsk Agreement.” The rest of this section calls for tons of money from the EU to pay the military contractors and arms-merchants. He underlines the following: “This requires a political decision by Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, as signatories of the Minsk Agreement, and the expenditure of considerable political capital to overcome legal hurdles and reach unanimity.” He expects Merkel and Hollande to finance the weapons for a third invasion of Donbass by Ukraine, which would actually violate the Minsk agreement that Merkel and Hollande had worked feverishly (and without America’s participation) to achieve. He expects Merkel and Hollande to get in line behind the U.S. The next section “The State of Play,” opens: “1. General Wesley Clark, Polish General Skrzypczak and a few specialists under the auspices of the Atlantic Council will advise President Poroshenko how to restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.” It then discusses the “National Reform Council (NRC)” which was recently formed in Kiev; and he says: “The International Renaissance Foundation which is the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundations was the sole financial supporter of the NRC until now and it will be one of the main supporters of the PMO, which is in charge of financing the NRC and implementing various reform projects, from now on.” So, Soros is telling the Ukrainian Government that his tax-exempt foundation will continue to fund them. Furthermore, he tells the Ukrainian Government whom the top three officials at the “PMO” (“Project Maintenance Office”) will be. And, then, yet again, he underlines a passage: “There is a stark contrast between the deteriorating external reality and the continuing progress in internal reforms.” He closes a sub-section on “Institutional reforms” by noting that: “The process has been slowed down by the insistence of the newly elected Rada [parliament] on proper procedures and total transparency.” He wants less “transparency” in the process toward “internal reforms” and “institutional reforms.” It must be “reforms” that are in the direction of less “transparency,” instead of more. That’s how he used the term “reforms”: they must be away from “transparency.” He then discusses the role of “The European Union,” and opens with: “1. Since member states don’t have adequate financial resources, a way has to be found to use the AAA credit of the European Union itself. The search has zeroed in on a well-established financial instrument, the Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) facility. The MFA has an unusual feature: only 9% of the allotted funds are charged to the budget of the European Union; the EU borrows the rest from the market, using its AAA credit. This makes it very popular.” In other words, just as Wall Street had done with Mortgage Backed Securities when George W. Bush was America’s President, investors who trust AAA credit-ratings will be socked with the losses on Ukrainian bonds too late to do anything about their losses. The money will already have been spent, mainly on weapons. His program closes with “A Winning Scenario,” which will be based on a “whatever it takes” commitment from the EU to fund Ukraine’s Government until ultimate victory (“short of getting involved in direct military confrontation with Russia or violating the Minsk agreement”). In other words: the EU and its taxpayers, and the world’s investors who trust the AAA credit-ratings, will fund the way to Ukraine’s victory. His “Winning Scenario” opens by saying, “1. Putin is likely to be impressed by a ‘whatever it takes’ declaration.” And it closes by saying: “4. At the same time, the allies will offer face-saving measures [to Russia] short of accepting the illegal annexation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. “5. Since military re-escalation is liable to run into military resistance from Ukraine and strong domestic opposition in Russia, Putin may well accept the face-saving measures. The tables will be turned and Ukraine would become an attractive investment destination.” (Presumably, this will happen by virtue of Ukraine’s achieving AAA credit-rating.) That’s the end of Soros’s document. It does not describe any — not a single one — of what it has referred to as “Medium-term: The next three to five years.” Nor does it even so much as mention the 2.5-year period between that and what he calls “Short-term: The next three to five months.” It’s only a three-to-five-month plan. If this is to be the business-plan for his Ukrainian Government, it covers only the “Short-term: The next three to five months.” This means it’s already actually almost over. Whatever investors are left from the faked Ukrainian bonds, and the “Institutional reforms” that have less “transparency” than Ukraine’s parliament recommends, those investors are expected to eat the resulting losses. They are to be the Daddy Warbucks of the situation. Because Soros, like his client Barack Obama, insists that Crimea’s being Russian will never be recognized, even though Crimea was part of Russia from 1783 to 1954 and Crimeans were always opposed to the Soviet Government’s transferring it to Ukraine in 1954, Soros’s point numbered 4 just above, where it says “short of accepting the illegal annexation of Crimea,” is asserting, in effect, that the United States will insist upon continuation of Obama’s sanctions against Russia, as being an essentially permanent condition. Soros is saying that one of the reasons Ukraine is being armed by the U.S. is in order to assist Ukraine in ultimately invading Crimea to retake it. But it’s not going to happen. However, the threat of it happening is important to Soros. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko thus felt free to say, on April 30th, “The war will end when Ukraine regains Donbass and Crimea,” and he repeated this promise on May 11th (though without “Crimea”), by his saying, “I have no doubt, we will free the [Donetsk] Airport, because it is our land.” He was strictly adhering to Soros’s instructions there. However, on May 12th, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry publicly warned Poroshenko against following through with that threat. But then Kerry’s subordinate, Victoria Nuland, three days later, publicly contradicted her boss on the matter, and Kerry simply was silent about that; so, apparently, President Obama is siding with Nuland (and Soros) on this matter. It seems that the game-plan calls for permanent economic sanctions against Russia, until Putin falls or otherwise is replaced by someone whom Washington (or Soros) accepts (which will be never, unless and until Russia becomes almost a U.S. satellite like it was during the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era). The Minsk II accords made no mention whatsoever of Crimea, but only of Donetsk and Luhansk, the two halves of Donbass; so, for Poroshenko to fulfill on his threat against Crimea would cause him to lose the support of Hollande, Merkel, and probably of the entire EU; it would leave Ukraine with only one remaining national patron, the U.S., which would then have to decide whether to go to war directly against Russia. NATO could not be a part to that war, because the NATO charter requires unanimity of all member-nations. So: obviously, Ukraine will never do any such thing. Ukraine won’t invade Crimea. America’s real focus is on continuation and intensification of the anti-Russia sanctions. If Ukraine invades Crimea, the EU will abandon those sanctions. So, Obama-Soros don’t actually want Poroshenko to follow through with that threat. Nuland had contradicted Kerry on that probably because Obama became angry at Kerry’s making policy; he was likely reasserting to Kerry that the President and only the President makes policy. Using Nuland to do that was then punishment of Kerry by Obama, for having overstepped into the President’s prerogative on the matter. George Soros, as of 2 June 2015, has a net worth of $24.2 billion, according to Forbes. He is sometimes referred to as being, to America’s Democratic Party, what Charles and David Koch are to the Republican Party, but there are differences in the ways that the respective billionaires funnel their money into poltical campaigns. Also, whereas the Kochs spend most of their political cash so as to cause people to disbelieve what 97%+ of climate scientists say about global warming, Soros spends most of his political money promoting pro-corporate Democrats of any type. Whereas the Kochs want to shove off onto the public the costs of pollution, etc., Soros wants to shove off onto the public the costs of governmental corruption per se. But in both instances, the benefits go to the billionaires; the costs go to the public. So: the two types of billionaires are actually quite similar, brothers-under-the-skin, as it were. Very few billionaires are in a different camp than those two: almost all want the broader society to eat the losses from their business activities. Among the few exceptions, who game neither the environment nor finance, are Tom Steyer, who has around a billion dollars, and Jeremy Grantham, who isn’t even included in any list of billionaires but who has perhaps had a bigger impact than anyone else to fund scientists who research global warming. None of the major billionaires opposes in any concerted way exploitation both of the environment and of the government — it’s one or the other, but most of them favor any type of exploitation. Perhaps that’s essential in order for them to be (or stay) among the world’s hundred or thousand wealthiest people. In other words: to be both anti-corruption and anti-pollution is to be not among the world’s wealthiest people, not a “serious player” on the world-stage. Anyway, this Soros document (and its background) helps to explain how international power actually functions, and how people (such as in Ukraine) become cannon-fodder at either the delivery-end or the reception-end of the “cannon.” It’s just a way that business is transacted among major billionaires, so as to leave the losses with the masses. It’s the way “the free market” naturally functions. It functions by weapons, and by wealth. That’s the way to maximize the freedom of the extremely rich, against the lives, safety, and welfare, of everybody else. And the very rich know it, and practice it. This confidential document from Soros is a good example of it, in actual practice. Poroshenko has his assignment: it’s to take from the public their blood and money, and to transfer the profits to oligarchs such as Soros, Poroshenko, and other members of the anti-Russia coalition. It’s a competition between the Western aristocracies versus Russia’s aristocracy. Russia’s response has been to join forces with the Chinese and other BRICS aristocracies. As Obama told graduating West Point cadets on 28 May 2014: “Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. >From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums.” He was telling America’s future military leaders that America is “the one indispensable nation” (which means that all other nations are “dispensable”) and that America’s military are in service to block foreign aristocracies from “a greater say in global forums.” Only “the one indispensable nation” has the indispensable aristocracy. And West Pointers serve those people. Though they’re paid by America’s public, they actually work for America’s aristocrats. They’re guns-for-hire who are to serve America’s aristocrats though they’re paid by America’s public. This is ‘democracy’ in ‘the one indispensable nation.’ Soros, and Poroshenko, know all about it. (4) Soros wants to buy up the Ukrainian state gas and energy monopoly, Naftogaz - F. William Engdahl An American Oligarch‘s Dirty Tale of Corruption F. William Engdahl/ New Eastern Outlook/ June 6 2015 http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/12/an-american-oligarch-s-dirty-tale-of-corruption/ Rarely does the world get a true look inside the corrupt world of Western oligarchs and the brazen manipulations they use to enhance their fortunes at the expense of the public good. The following comes from correspondence of the Hungarian-born billionaire, now naturalized American speculator, George Soros. The hacker group CyberBerkut has published online letters allegedly written by Soros that reveal him not only as puppet master of the US-backed Ukraine regime. They also reveal his machinations with the US Government and the officials of the European Union in a scheme where, if he succeeds, he could win billions in the plunder of Ukraine assets. All, of course, would be at the expense of Ukrainian citizens and of EU taxpayers. What the three hacked documents reveal is a degree of behind-the-scene manipulation of the most minute details of the Kiev regime by the New York billionaire. In the longest memo, dated March 15, 2015 and marked “Confidential” Soros outlines a detailed map of actions for the Ukraine regime. Titled, “A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine,” the memo from Soros calls for steps to “restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.” To do the restoring, Soros blithely notes that “General Wesley Clark, Polish General Skrzypczak and a few specialists under the auspices of the Atlantic Council [emphasis added—f.w.e.] will advise President Poroshenko how to restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.” Soros also calls for supplying lethal arms to Ukraine and secretly training Ukrainian army personnel in Romania to avoid direct NATO presence in Ukraine. The Atlantic Council is a leading Washington pro-NATO think tank. Notably, Wesley Clark is also a business associate of Soros in BNK Petroleum which does business in Poland. Clark, some might recall, was the mentally-unstable NATO General in charge of the 1999 bombing of Serbia who ordered NATO soldiers to fire on Russian soldiers guarding the Pristina International Airport. The Russians were there as a part of an agreed joint NATO–Russia peacekeeping operation supposed to police Kosovo. The British Commander, General Mike Jackson refused Clark, retorting, “I’m not going to start the Third World War for you.” Now Clark apparently decided to come out of retirement for the chance to go at Russia directly. Naked asset grab In his March 2015 memo Soros further writes that Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s “first priority must be to regain control of financial markets,” which he assures Poroshenko that Soros would be ready to assist in: “I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement.” He also calls on the EU to give Ukraine an annual aid sum of €11 billion via a special EU borrowing facility. Soros proposes in effect using the EU’s “AAA” top credit rating to provide a risk insurance for investment into Ukraine. Whose risk would the EU insure? Soros details, “I am prepared to invest up to €1 billion in Ukrainian businesses. This is likely to attract the interest of the investment community. As stated above, Ukraine must become an attractive investment destination.” Not to leave any doubt, Soros continues, “The investments will be for-profit but I will pledge to contribute the profits to my foundations. This should allay suspicions that I am advocating policies in search of personal gain. “ For anyone familiar with the history of the Soros Open Society Foundations in Eastern Europe and around the world since the late 1980’s, will know that his supposedly philanthropic “democracy-building” projects in Poland, Russia, or Ukraine in the 1990’s allowed Soros the businessman to literally plunder the former communist countries using Harvard University’s “shock therapy” messiah, and Soros associate, Jeffrey Sachs, to convince the post-Soviet governments to privatize and open to a “free market” at once, rather than gradually. The example of Soros in Liberia is instructive for understanding the seemingly seamless interplay between Soros the shrewd businessman and Soros the philanthropist. In West Africa George Soros backed a former Open Society employee of his, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, giving her international publicity and through his influence, even arranging a Nobel Peace Prize for her in 2011, insuring her election as president. Before her presidency she had been well-indoctrinated into the Western free market game, studying economics at Harvard and working for the US-controlled World Bank in Washington and the Rockefeller Citibank in Nairobi. Before becoming Liberia’s President, she worked for Soros directly as chair of his Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). Once in office, President Sirleaf opened the doors for Soros to take over major Liberian gold and base metals assets along with his partner, Nathaniel Rothschild. One of her first acts as President was to also invite the Pentagon’s new Africa Command, AFRICOM, into Liberia whose purpose as a Liberian investigation revealed, was to “protect George Soros and Rothschild mining operations in West Africa rather than champion stability and human rights.” Naftogaz the target The Soros memo makes clear he has his eyes on the Ukrainian state gas and energy monopoly, Naftogaz. He writes, “The centerpiece of economic reforms will be the reorganization of Naftogaz and the introduction of market pricing for all forms of energy, replacing hidden subsidies…” In an earlier letter Soros wrote in December 2014 to both President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, Soros openly called for his Shock Therapy: “I want to appeal to you to unite behind the reformers in your government and give your wholehearted support to a radical, ‘big bang’ type of approach. That is to say, administrative controls would be removed and the economy would move to market prices rapidly rather than gradually…Naftogaz needs to be reorganized with a big bang replacing the hidden subsidies…” Splitting Naftogaz into separate companies could allow Soros to take control of one of the new branches and essentially privatize its profits. He already suggested that he indirectly brought in US consulting company, McKinsey, to advise Naftogaz on the privatization “big bang.” The Puppet-Master? The totality of what is revealed in the three hacked documents show that Soros is effectively the puppet-master pulling most of the strings in Kiev. Soros Foundation’s Ukraine branch, International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) has been involved in Ukraine since 1989. His IRF doled out more than $100 million to Ukrainian NGOs two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, creating the preconditions for Ukraine’s independence from Russia in 1991. Soros also admitted to financing the 2013-2014 Maidan Square protests that brought the current government into power. Soros’ foundations were also deeply involved in the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought the corrupt but pro-NATO Viktor Yushchenko into power with his American wife who had been in the US State Department. In 2004 just weeks after Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation had succeeded in getting Viktor Yushchenko as President of Ukraine, Michael McFaul wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post. McFaul, a specialist in organizing color revolutions, who later became US Ambassador to Russia, revealed: Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine? Yes. The American agents of influence would prefer different language to describe their activities — democratic assistance, democracy promotion, civil society support, etc. — but their work, however labeled, seeks to influence political change in Ukraine. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and a few other foundations sponsored certain U.S. organizations, including Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Solidarity Center, the Eurasia Foundation, Internews and several others to provide small grants and technical assistance to Ukrainian civil society. The European Union, individual European countries and the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation did the same. Soros shapes ‘New Ukraine’ Today the CyberBerkut hacked papers show that Soros’ IRF money is behind creation of a National Reform Council, a body organized by presidential decree from Poroshenko which allows the Ukrainian president to push bills through Ukraine’s legislature. Soros writes, “The framework for bringing the various branches of government together has also emerged. The National Reform Council (NRC) brings together the presidential administration, the cabinet of ministers, the Rada and its committees and civil society. The International Renaissance Foundation which is the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundations was the sole financial supporter of the NRC until now…” Soros’ NRC in effect is the vehicle to allow the President to override parliamentary debate to push through “reforms,” with the declared first priority being privatization of Naftogaz and raising gas prices drastically to Ukrainian industry and households, something the bankrupt country can hardly afford. In his letter to Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk, Soros hints that he played a key role in selection of three key non-Ukrainian ministers—Natalia Jaresko, an American ex- State Department official as Finance Minister; Aivras Abromavicius of Lithuania as Economics Minister, and a health minister from Georgia. Soros in his December 2014 letter, referring to his proposal for a “big bank” privatization of Naftogaz and price rise, states, “You are fortunate to have appointed three ‘new Ukrainian’ ministers and several natives (sic) who are committed to this approach.” Elsewhere Soros speaks about de facto creating the impression within the EU that the current government of Yatsenyuk is finally cleaning out the notorious corruption that has dominated every Kiev regime since 1991. Creating that temporary reform illusion, he remarks, will convince the EU to cough up the €11 billion annual investment insurance fund. His March 2015 paper says that, “It is essential for the government to produce a visible demonstration (sic) during the next three months in order to change the widely prevailing image of Ukraine as an utterly corrupt country.” That he states will open the EU to make the €11 billion insurance guarantee investment fund. While saying that it is important to show Ukraine as a country that is not corrupt, Soros reveals he has little concern when transparency and proper procedures block his agenda. Talking about his proposals to reform Ukraine’s constitution to enable privatizations and other Soros-friendly moves, he complains, “The process has been slowed down by the insistence of the newly elected Rada on proper procedures and total transparency.” Soros suggests that he intends to create this “visible demonstration” through his initiatives, such as using the Soros-funded National Reform Council, a body organized by presidential decree which allows the Ukrainian president to push bills through Ukraine’s legislature. George Soros is also using his new European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank to lobby his Ukraine strategy, with his council members such as Alexander Graf Lambsdorff or Joschka Fischer or Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, not to mention former ECB head, Jean-Claude Trichet no doubt laying a subtle role. George Soros, now 84, was born in Hungary as a Jew, George Sorosz. Soros once boasted in a TV interview that he posed during the war as a gentile with forged papers, assisting the Horthy government to seize property of other Hungarian Jews who were being shipped to the Nazi death camps. Soros told the TV moderator, “There was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was–well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets–that if I weren’t there–of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would.” This is the same morality apparently behind Soros’ activities in Ukraine today. It seems again to matter not to him that the Ukrainian government he helped bring to power in February 2014 US coup d’etat is riddled with explicit anti-semites and self-proclaimed neo-Nazis from the Svoboda Party and Pravy Sektor. George Soros is clearly a devotee of “public-private-partnership.” Only here the public gets fleeced to enrich private investors like Mr. Soros and friends. Cynically, Soros signs his Ukraine strategy memo, “George Soros–A self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine, March 12, 2015.” (5) A Winning Strategy For Ukraine, by George Soros at Project Syndicate http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ukraine-winning-strategy-by-george-soros-2015-06 http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2015/06/19/george-soros-a-winning-strategy-for-ukraine/ A Winning Strategy For Ukraine By George Soros Published at Project Syndicate on JUN 17, 2015 Published at Jewish Business News on: Fri, Jun 19th, 2015 At the beginning of this year, I proposed a strategy for Ukraine that recognized that sanctions on Russia are not enough. They must be coupled with a political commitment by Ukraine’s allies to do whatever it takes to enable the country not only to survive, but to succeed in implementing far-reaching political and economic reforms, despite the implacable opposition of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sanctions, though necessary, are harmful not only to Russia but also to Europe’s economy. By contrast, enabling the Ukrainian economy to flourish would benefit both Ukraine and Europe. Even more important, sanctions by themselves reinforce Putin’s narrative that Russia is the victim of a Western or Anglo-Saxon plot to deprive it of its rightful place as a great power equal to the United States. All of Russia’s economic and political difficulties, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine argues, have resulted from Western hostility. The only way to counter this narrative is to combine sanctions with effective support for Ukraine. If Ukraine prospers while Russia declines, no amount of propaganda will be able to conceal that Putin’s policies are to blame. Unfortunately, Europe’s leaders have chosen a different course. They treat Ukraine as another Greece: a country in financial difficulties – and one that is not even a European Union member state. This is a mistake. Ukraine is undergoing a revolutionary transformation, and the current government is probably the one best able to deliver radical change. There are indeed some significant similarities between the “old Ukraine” and Greece: both suffer from a corrupt bureaucracy and an economy dominated by oligarchs. But the new Ukraine is determined to be different. By keeping Ukraine on a short financial leash, Europe is jeopardizing the country’s progress. In a sense, Europe’s failure to recognize the birth of a new Ukraine is not surprising. Spontaneous uprisings occur frequently; the Arab Spring, for example, spread like a wave across North Africa and the Middle East. But most revolts do not endure; their energy is exhausted quickly – as with Ukraine’s Orange Revolution a decade ago. Today’s Ukraine is one of the rare cases in which protest is transformed into a constructive, nation-building project. Although I participated in that transformation process, I confess that even I underestimated the new Ukraine’s resilience. Putin has made the same mistake, but on a much larger scale. He has been so successful in manipulating public opinion that he was unwilling to believe that people could act spontaneously. That has been his Achilles’ heel. Twice he ordered former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to use force against the people protesting in the Maidan, Ukraine’s Independence Square. But, instead of fleeing the violence, people rushed to Maidan, willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. The second time, in March 2014, when the protesters faced live ammunition, they turned on the police, and it was the police who ran away. Such an event can become a nation-founding myth. Putin knows that he is responsible for turning Ukraine from a pliable ally into an implacable opponent, and he has made it a top priority to destabilize the country ever since. Indeed, he has made considerable – though purely temporary – progress on this front. Given that Putin also recognizes that his regime may not survive two or three more years with oil substantially below $100 a barrel, his sense of urgency is understandable. His progress – measurable by comparing the Minsk II ceasefire agreement with Minsk I – can be attributed partly to his skills as a tactician. More important, whereas he is willing to go to war, Ukraine’s allies have made it clear that they are incapable of responding quickly and unwilling to risk a direct military confrontation with Russia. This has given Putin the first-mover advantage, because he can switch at will from hybrid peace to hybrid war and back again. Ukraine’s allies cannot possibly outbid Russia by military escalation; but surely they can outbid Russia on the financial side. European leaders, in particular, have failed to appreciate Ukraine’s importance. By defending itself, Ukraine is also defending the EU. If Putin succeeds in destabilizing Ukraine, he may then apply the same tactics to divide the EU and win over some of its member states. If Ukraine fails, the EU would have to defend itself. The cost, in financial and human terms, would be far greater than the cost of helping Ukraine. That is why, rather than drip-feeding Ukraine, the EU and its member states should treat assistance to Ukraine as a defense expenditure. Framed this way, the amounts currently being spent shrink into insignificance. The problem is that the EU and its member states are too fiscally constrained to support Ukraine on the scale needed to enable it to survive and prosper. But that constraint could be removed, if the EU’s Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) facility were redesigned. The MFA already has been used to provide modest assistance to Ukraine; but it needs a new framework agreement to fulfill its potential. The MFA is an attractive financing instrument because it requires no cash outlay from the EU budget. Instead, the EU borrows the funds from the markets (using its largely untapped triple-A credit rating) and lends these funds to non-member governments. A cash outlay from the EU budget would materialize only if and when a borrowing country defaulted. Under prevailing rules, just 9% of the loan amount is charged to the current budget as a non-cash outlay to ensure against this risk. A new framework agreement would allow the MFA to be used on a larger scale and in a more flexible manner. At present, the MFA can be used for budgetary support but not to provide political risk insurance and other investment incentives to the private sector. Moreover, each allocation must be approved by the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, and every member state. The EU’s contribution to the International Monetary Fund’s rescue package in February took until May to process. The strategy for Ukraine that I proposed at the start of the year has run into three roadblocks. First, the debt restructuring that was supposed to account for $15.3 billion of the $41 billion contained in the second IMF-led rescue package has made little progress. Second, the EU has not even started to construct a new MFA framework agreement. And, third, EU leaders have shown no sign that they are willing to do “whatever it takes” to help Ukraine. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande are eager to ensure that the Minsk II agreement, which carries their signatures, is successful. The trouble is that the agreement was negotiated by the Ukrainian side under duress, and was left deliberately ambiguous by Russia. It calls for negotiations between the Ukrainian government and representatives of the Donbas region, without specifying who those representatives are. The Ukrainian government wants to negotiate with representatives elected according to Ukrainian law; Putin wants Ukraine’s government to negotiate with the separatists, who took power by force. [...] George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Foundations. © Project Syndicate 1995–2015 (6) Ukraine now much poorer than before Yanukovych ouster http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1039 How The IMF Really Works By Brother Nathanael Kapner June 16, 2015 @ 7:49 pm It sounds like bad business. The IMF just announced that if Ukraine defaults on its debts to creditors, it will still loan it money. Would you loan money to a deadbeat? That’s how the IMF works. It loans billions to countries who it knows can’t pay back. It’s a Jewish scam to ‘foreclose’ on a country’s assets. You see, the IMF’s major shareholder is the US Treasury with sole veto rights. Current and former heads of the Treasury—Jacob Lew, Larry Summers, and Robert Rubin—are all Goldman Sachs boys. Sounds like a guest list to a Bar Mitzvah, doesn’t it? Goys too….Paulson and Geithner…both shills for the Bar Mitzvah bunch at Goldman Sachs. Lagarde is just Gentile window dressing. Connect the dots. The US Treasury that runs the IMF is bankrolled AT INTEREST by the Fed, a consortium of Jewish banks orbited around the Rothschild dynasty. The IMF is a Jewish bankster operation whose loans are not to boost a country’s economy but to pay off creditors it already owes, many of whom are part of the kleptocracy. Yats says so himself. [Clip: “You are well aware that the government launched a four year EFF program with the IMF, together with the IMF. We expect to get up to 25 billion dollars in the forthcoming four years, but the gap is much bigger. Much bigger. As you are well aware, this money goes directly to our creditors.”] And with a One-Two punch the IMF is screwing Ukraine. Punch One is to shrink the economy via “austerity.” This is done by IMF ‘conditionalities’ which demands raising taxes and cutting government benefits. And Yats takes the bait. [Clip: “Despite the fact that the government has frozen all social expenditures, we shut down the number of entitlement programs, we did everything we can to fix the budget gap. We still need an enormous–an additional enormous amount of financial support.”] It’s a bottomless pit. Cutting government programs and raising taxes only widens the budget deficit by reducing the purchasing power of the citizens. With no buyers, the GDP shrivels up. And with Ukraine ditching its lucrative Russian market, and with Europe spurning Ukrainian-made goods, Ukraine is now a failed state. The IMF likes it like that. Now comes Punch Two. With compound interest climbing and the debt unserviceable, the IMF demands that Ukraine sell off its assets to cool the creditors. Even with privatization the debt will never be paid off and Ukraine becomes an eternal vassal to Jewish banksters. And with Yats and US Commerce Secretary Penney Pritzker now planning a Ukrainian fire sale, the IMF and its client, Monsanto, are licking their chops over Ukraine’s farmland too. Not for nothing did they install Saakashvili as the new governor of Odessa, a vital part of Ukraine’s breadbasket and maritime shipping. He just admitted that things were much better under Yanukovich, who Nudelman of the US State Department toppled. [Clip: “Now Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe. If the collapse of the economy suddenly stops and Ukraine develops by four percent annually, we will reach the level of 2013 in 20 years. Only in 20 years will we return to the figures of Yanukovych’s Ukraine.”] Ain’t gonna happen. Once the IMF fleeces the assets, “Yanukovych’s Ukraine” will be a Jewish-owned state. And that’s how the IMF works. My dear Ukrainians, you can kiss your country goodbye! -- Peter Myers Australia website: http://mailstar.net/index.html |
Archives >